By Natasha Tripathi
Faculty, staff and students protested yesterday afternoon at Old Queens to demonstrate resistance against the University administrative board sticking to the “subject to” clause, not considering salary raises for some time and proved solidarity in the University community.
People congregated at the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street before marching up and into the doors of Old Queens to protest while bargaining over faculty contracts goes on behind building doors.
“The bargaining is going on, and we’re going to head in in a minute,” Sherry Wolf, lead organizer for the American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers, said. “Dick Edwards will be on one side, and our bargaining team is on the other.”
Joe Richard, an organizer for the American Association of University Professors, American Federation of Teachers, a faculty union, said the AAUP-AFT was staging a protest outside of Old Queens in support of the union’s bargaining team trying to eradicate the “subject to” clause in union contracts.
The “subject to” clause enables management to impose salary freezes based on contingencies or special conditions, Richard said.
“We want to disrupt business as usual, and make it as difficult as possible for the administration to continue running Rutgers in the way that they do,” Richard said.
Lucye Millerand, president of the Union of Rutgers Administration, American Federation of Teachers, a staff union, said faculty and staff have gathered because Rutgers has a lot of money for fair contracts for its employees who work hard, serve students and conduct research.
“Rutgers has the money for fair contracts with fair wages … Barchi’s contract is not subject to anything, like the state budget,” she said.
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